Brown Bear

The brown bear (Ursus arctos) is a carnivore (order: Carnivora) in the family Ursidae of the mammalian order Carnivora found in Europe, North America, and Central, Western, and Eastern Asia, including Japan. In North America, inland- and mountain-dwelling brown bears are commonly known as grizzly bears (U. a. horribilis); bears found along the coast of Alaska—including some of the world's biggest—are referred to as peninsular brown bears (U. a. gyas).

Historically, the brown bear's extensive range once included such places as the Atlas Mountains of North Africa, Mexico, the Levant, the Middle East, and Great Britain and Ireland; however, over the centuries, humans have drastically reduced the number of bears across their range, largely due to excessive hunting and human settlement fueling habitat loss.

Around the world, there are thought to be around 110,000 surviving brown bears, according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF); roughly half of these are found in the vast forests and taiga habitat of Russia, and about one-quarter live in North America, primarily in Alaska and to the northwest of the Rocky Mountains.

In 2010, there were approximately 14,000 brown bears living in Europe, spread out in 10 separate populations across the continent. This ranges from a handful in the Pyrenees Mountains between Spain and France to a few thousand in Romania.

Subspecies[]

Eurasian brown bear (Ursus a. arctos)
Gobi bear (U. a. gobiensis): critically endangered, and only occurring in Mongolia's Gobi Desert, this is the only desert-specialized species of bear on earth.
Grizzly bear (U. a. horribilis): among the most well-known of the North American bears, the term "grizzly" typically refers to bears found along the Rockies and to the north and west of those mountains. Additionally, male grizzlies often have a pronounced "hump" on their upper back.
Himalayan brown bear (U. a. isabellinus)
Kamchatka or Far Eastern brown bear (U. a. beringianus): found on the Kamchatka Peninsula, Russian Far East, very closely tied to the brown bears of North America.
Kodiak or Kodiak Island bear (U. a. middendorffii)
Peninsular brown bear (U. a. gyas)—debated taxa, potentially U. a. horribilis or middendorffii.
Syrian brown bear (U. a. syriacus)—debated taxa, potentially U. a. arctos, the Eurasian, and nominate, subspecies.
Tibetan blue bear (U. a. pruinosus)
Ussuri brown bear (U. a. ussuriensis)—formerly known as the Manchurian brown bear in northern China and the Korean Peninsula.

Brown Bear

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